just approved 2016-10-25 16:27 – can take a moment to be visible in App Store

Amazon Fire OS or BlackBerry10 on Amazon App Store:

Sorry – not enough time yet to also develop a native BlackBerry 10 App – hopefully for the next conference. Native BlackBerry 10 Cascades App loads faster and runs smoother on BlackBerry 10.

Also working on Windows 10 Mobile – runs in development mode on Lumia and others – haven’t finished the work to upload release to windows store yet.

You probably know that last years I always developed the BlackBerry 10 App for Eclipse Conferences. This year first I did it for Android and iOS using Qt 5.7 and brandnew Qt Quick Controls 2. Used Qt Quick Controls 2 and Google Material Style. To make my work easier, Entities (Session, Speaker, Track, Room, Conference, …) are generated using a Xtext / Xtend DSL. Started this DSL 2 years ago for BlackBerry 10 Cascades / Qt 4.8 and now I’m able also to generate code for Qt 5.7 / Qt Quick Controls 2. Hopefully at the end of year mobaDSL will be available Open Source.

Overview Goods Receipt APP

This app is running at a german Plants Wholesale company. Plants are delivered via Trucks to stores. Before the goods are going out there’s a check if quantity and content is the same as ordered and packed. If all is OK, data will be send via EDI from Plants Wholesale company to Plants Store to avoid the time consuming work of Goods Receipt at arrival of the truck.

The challenge was to develop a mobile app to make this work of checking the goods easy, fast and avoid errors. Plants are collected as single plants or in containers, Euro Pallets etc. All Plants have a barcode (EAN13) and also the Customer’s Sales Price printed on a label. All the Goods belonging to one order can be collected on some carts / trailers where it must be possible to start the check before the complete order was packed.

So this is the workflow: Scan the barcode from the order, get quantities and units of packed data from server, cache on device, then scan all goods. If ready get expexted (packed) data again from server and compare. Show positions and mark correct data, too much or less / missing. Correct, add or remove data, add all the containers / Euro Pallets and send quantities and units back to server.

Server is connected via REST services. All work on the mobile device is cached on the device to allow working while offline.

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Hardware

The mobile App must be robust and easy to handle with large fonts and big buttons. The device will be placed inside a arm bag and all the navigation and data entry must work by tapping on the device without getting the virtual keyboard where keys are too small. Barcode Scanner will be placed on the index finger to be able to work hands-free.

Image of the Arm bag will follow – it’s just in-production. The bag must work inside and outside in the sun, so must be glare-free. Wasn’t easy to find the right one so finally we decided to produce a custom made bag.

APP-in-action (Video)

work-in-progress

The mobile APP (Screenshots)

At startup the APP automatically switches Bluetooth ON and at the end Bluetooth will be switched OFF.

There’s no other Bluetooth APP on these devices, so it’s a good idea to be energy efficient.

After switching Bluetooth ON, the APP is searching for the last connected Scanner.

If no one found you can manage all the Bluetooth stuff without any tech knowledge from inside the app (see below at the end of this article)

Bluetooth is ON and Scanner is connected: you’re ready to start work for Goods Receipt.

Now scan the Order number from the Picking List you want to check.

Picking List with informations on Customer and Positions will be downloaded from server via REST service and cached inside your secure app sandbox.

Scanning the same Order number again will load the data from cache – so it’s easy to switch.

All Pages are using large fonts and designed to make it easy to read, understand and to tap on.

As soon as one of the Picking Lists (Orders) is active you can start to scan EAN13 Barcodes from the packed goods.

If a Barcode was not found inside the active Order, the APP is looking at other cached and not yet completed lists. If Barcode was found inside another Order, you’ll get the info using a Custom Dialog.

Then it’s easy to switchto another Order by a single Tap or cancel if the wrong article was scanned.

Each Order Position knows allowed Barcodes, so from scanned EAN 13 Code the APP detects the Order Position and displays description, price, size, quantity and content.

You also see the amount of already scanned quantity (in the example below: 60) and you get an Icon at the right to know about the current state:

red arrow down: less scanned then packed

blue arrow up: more scanned then expected

green checkmark: all is OK – scanned quantity same as packed

Tapping on the Icon you’ll get a list of all single scans for this position.

From here you can tap on on Unit (Menge) or Content (Inhalt) to edit the value.

Tapping on the trash sets quantity to 0.

One of the great things from BlackBerry 10 OS is the “peek-back” functionality: you always know about the context by simply swipe the current Page to the right border.

Here peeking back from an Order Position to Order Header gives easy access to Order and Customer info:

Remember: the Device is inside an arms bag and it must be easy to enter data.

Key caps from virtual keyboard are too small, so I developed a numeric keypad occupying complete space from Device in Landscape orientation.

This numeric keyboard knows about the context and so it’s optimized to enter Quantity, Content, Prices, Order Numbers or EAN13 Codes.

The Backend

The Barcode Icon at the very left shows the details of all scanned data.

Take a look at the Video to get a feeling how smooth this app is working. Then you understand why my first choice for Business Apps is always BlackBerry10 OS. More of my BlackBerry 10 Business Apps can be found here.

BB10 vs Android Development

Often I was asked, why I’m still developing business apps for BlackBerry 10.

Why not Android – even now where BlackBerry is providing a first Device powered by Android (BlackBerry PRIV) ?

I really like the PRIV giving me a great touch screen plus keyboard plus all the apps and services from Google Play with all the security by BlackBerry on top: unbeatable in the Android world.

If you need all these apps for your daily business: use the PRIV – it’s made for you and gives you the most secure Android Device. Of course I’ll also develop business apps for the BlackBerry PRIV.

If you need the most secure OS or Push Services inside secure BlackBerry infrastructure or Apps providing the smoothest way to follow your workflows: use a BlackBerry 10 Device.

The good news: you can manage and run all together from your BES12: Android, BlackBerry10, iOS, Windows 10, Android for Work, Samsung KNOX !

To give you some infos what kind of apps can be done with BlackBerry 10 you can take a look at BlackBerry World (search for ‘ekke’) – it’s the only reason why I’m publishing some apps there. Most of my business apps are ‘hidden’: they’re running on BES12 at small, medium or large Enterprise Companies worldwide.

To give you some first impressions I’ll blog about some of the native business apps I developed for customers or BlackBerry Partners. Stay tuned …

BB10 is all about Speed

BlackBerry 10 is built from ground for speed and smooth workflows to be as productive as possible esp. in Business Apps.

A good summary on this from CrackBerry by Bla1ze from an article comparing UX of Android (BlackBerry PRIV) and BlackBerry 10:

Speed – Losing the ability to fly through the OS quickly was something I was fully aware I was going lose going into the Priv. The ability to hop in and out of apps, switch windows, complete tasks, glance at the pertinent info and just get right down to business is intense on BlackBerry 10, and I’ve not yet been able to reach the same level on the Priv. I’m not saying it’s impossible on the Priv or Android in general; I’m just saying it that experience and speed were built into BlackBerry 10. On Priv, it’s going to take a bit more effort to get things set up the right way and customize the experience to get to the same point. BlackBerry had the pleasure of being able to create BlackBerry 10 from the ground up and build in those experiences. On Priv, they’re playing in someone else’s sandbox and those experiences have to be recreated.

This doesn’t help if you miss Apps important for your work on BB10 – then you should go with Android or iOS. But there are many use-cases and scenarios where missing Apps is not a problem and you should choose BB10 where possible to get the best performance. Perhaps my BB10 – Business – Apps – stories will help you to decide.

BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Android Devices are brothers in respect of secure devices and both are great for small and big enterprises.

mobaDSL

While developing mobile Business Apps I recognized that there are many patterns to provide Offline-Cache, to access REST Services, to transform and bind data to UI and much more. So I developed a DSL (Domain Specific Language) based on Xtext and Xtend and this DSL will become Open Source next months. Read more at mobaDSL.

mobaDSL will speed up development of mobile business apps and will be available for native BB10, Android and iOS App Development. mobaDSL is not an App generator – it’s more like a toolbox / workbench to help you to avoid all the boring copy/paste stuff and to generate Entities, Data Transfer Objects, REST Services and more.